Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:58:44 +0200
From: Julian Obedient
Subject: In Leather, with Silver Chains 3
You are not going to spend the whole summer doing nothing, his mother
said, looking at him sideways as she leaned over the sink and scoured
a frying pan.
Kent did not answer.
Graduation is in two weeks, she said.
I know, he said with stifled petulance.
What do you intend to do after graduation? she continued, unrelenting.
I'm going to college. You know that.
And this summer? she reminded him, as if he had forgotten that it was
still there?
Kent looked at his mother without speaking. She was not the woman he
remembered. Time and circumstance had hardened her features. Something
metallic had gotten into her voice.
I expect you to contribute to the house, she said. I work hard. It is
not easy. I am tired.
Tears of anger formed but she kept them locked in her eyes as she
spoke. The effort to suppress herself was visible.
He knew what she said was true. She did work hard to support him and
his sister. Her job drained her, and it was because she went to work
that she had changed, become hard-edged and unavailable.
Why do I feel like I'm talking for nothing? she said.
You're not talking for nothing, Kent answered angrily.
I hope not, she said.
**********
It had been muggy all morning. In a blue and white, needle-stripped
seersucker sports jacket and tan chino pants, Kent had dragged himself
dispirited through the subways and the hot street, weaving through
indifferent crowds of unfamiliar people, feeling vastly alone and
isolated.
Lying made him uncomfortable, and he felt every interviewer knew it
was a lie when he said he was not going to go to college in the fall,
had decided to wait a year but might start to take some night classes
in accounting starting in February. He certainly did not believe it
whenever he repeated it in one office or another.
Between rounds of interviews, while sitting in waiting rooms or zoning
out on the subway, his mind would take him where he could not afford
to go. Rather than planning job strategies, he imagined erotic
encounters, remembering how Bud looked when he posed for him and Terry
in his leather harness, silver chains dangling from his pierced
nipples, his engorged cock adorned with a titanium ring at its base,
and his inner thighs made maddeningly desirable by the Cuban heel
boots he was wearing.
Finally, feeling the weight of defeat and the warmth of unsatisfied
yearning, he stood holding the bars of the fence surrounding the
graveyard outside Trinity Church in lower Manhattan looking for
Alexander Hamilton's tomb. The skyscrapers all around soared upwards
tilting with diminishing perspective. He felt dizzy. It began to rain.
Without warning it was torrential.
Dripping he entered a rundown building that must have been elegant in
its day, but its marble floors were cracked and grimy and so was the
age-darkened wainscoting that reached halfway up to the pale
lime-colored plaster. The ceilings were white coffered tin.
He took the dingy elevator up to the fourteenth floor, and walked
through the corridor looking for 1423.
*********
Shirtless, barefoot, in only a pair of leather trousers that hugged
his lean, muscular thighs like spandex, Stelios slipped into the
office where Brent was showing galleys and glossies to Hans Zacharias.
All Zacharias's attention was focused on them until he looked up and
saw Stelios. His mouth dropped open.
Excuse me, Stelios said, I'm sorry to interrupt, but it is nearly
three o'clock, Brent.
Thank you, Stelios, Brent said, and turning to Zacharias said, You've
met Stelios, haven't you, Hans?
No, indeed I have not. I would have remembered if I had, he said.
Approaching Stelios and extending his hand, he exclaimed, Where have
you come from and are you real?
Stelios blushed charmingly but said with full composure, I am real,
and I came from Brent's back office.
Indeed, Zacharias said.
Indeed, Hans, Brent said. This is Stelios. You ought to recognize him
from some of the glossies we've been looking at.
Casting glances back and forth between the glossies and the young man,
Zacharias, let his glance rest finally on the man.
Extraordinary, he said.
Stelios lives with me, Brent added quietly, preemptively.
Since when?
Since more than three year ago when we met at a performance of "The
Rite of Spring."
I have been out of the country too long, Zacharias said.
Welcome back, Stelios said, grinning.
The two of you? Zacharias said, fishing for words and drawing an
imaginary line with a back and forth motion of his hand, the index
finger extended.
I am his leather boy, Stelios said.
My blushes, the Englishman said, unable to take his eyes off him.
Brent, my dear, would it be alright if I touched?
Ask him, Brent said laughing.
May I? Zacharias addressed himself to Stelios.
Please, Stelios said, if it's ok with Brent.
Brent nodded.
As if granted a special privilege in a museum, Zacharias brushed
Stelios's flesh with his finger tips, first the muscles of his upper
arms and then the contours of his chest. He did it with awe and with
the delicacy and respect you would bestow on an ancient marble.
An extraordinary find, he said, addressing himself to Brent again, as
if Stelios were, indeed, an ancient marble Brent had unearthed in some
rare antique shop.
And the layouts, you like them, too? Brent said, grinning, as well as the model?
Indeed, indeed. I do, Zacharias said, unable to take his eyes off
Stelios, and I shall recommend to the publisher that we go ahead with
the project.
Some brandy then, yes?
Delighted.
Stelios.
While Stelios poured the drinks for the three of them, Brent said to
Zacharias, Would you like to borrow him?
Stelios?
Stelios.
You're not serious.
Why not?
Because^┼well because he's a person not a thing.
The way you looked at him did not convey that.
My apologies.
No need. I'm not objecting. It's our bread and butter, don't forget.
But tell me, Hans, out of curiosity, what's the difference between a
person and a thing?
Well, you can own a thing but a person owns himself.
But there are people who have been owned.
But that's slavery.
And they are?
Slaves. Slaves. Is Stelios a slave?
Is Stelios a slave? Ask him.
Stelios, my boy, Zachaias said, are you a slave?
When Brent says I am, yes.
Do you want to be my slave?
My will belongs to Brent. If he commands me to serve you, I will obey him.
Zacharias was not sure if his leg was being pulled or how hard.
And will you obey me?
I will in so far as by obeying you I am obeying him.
I have the sense, Zacharias said, laughing, that although you are
being entirely honest, you are also being entirely elusive.
Elusive? Stelios responded, raising an eyebrow.
At least eluding me.
Forgive me if I offend, Stelios said with a slight bow.
You do not offend, Zacharias said, putting his arm around the
beautiful young man. But it is clear where your heart is as well as
your obedience, and I have no desire to take from you by authority
what you would not offer from desire.
Just then this confabulation was interrupted by Kent's knock upon the
outer office door.
Come in, Brent said, holding the door open to the boy.
Kent beheld with astonishment the shirtless figure of the magazine
image he had been living with for nearly a month since he had taken
Terry's copy home with him the day Terry had hypnotized him and he had
become his slave and begun his daily workouts and troubled his mother
by announcing he had become a vegetarian.
May I help you? Brent said, smiling at the wet boy's astonishment.
Kent shook himself out of his trance and rather like a dog rattling
itself upon coming out of the water after a swim, scattered beads of
water all about him.
Excuse me, Kent said. I, I saw your add in the Times for an office boy.
**********
No, Bud said.
Yes, Kent responded.
Congratulations, said Terry. I knew it. Once you set something in
motion, it keeps going. All you have to do is go along with it.
It's not out in the sunshine all day, like you guys are at Jacob Reis.
They were lifeguards for the summer on the same beach, so they could
spent their days together. They had become golden skinned, and their
hair was sun-bleached. They watched the ocean, but the guys who came
there watched them.
I mean you two are almost as good as Stelios. But^┼
What do you mean "almost?" Terry said, taking hold of Kent's nipple
and twisting it.
Kent exhaled and his eyes grew glassy.
But it's pretty good. I even get to work some of the shoots. And I've
got you guys to thank for it, he said.
They looked at him puzzled.
You helped bring me out and helped me start to get into shape.
It was true. Kent was lean and his body had grown solid with light
muscle definition. With the baby fat gone from his face, and his cheek
bones prominent, the suggestion of good looks that had always lurked
in his face became a fully articulated statement.
********
The river's back was trembling. The last fragments of light flashed
and darted on the nervous rills which the wind raised and let fall
again. Hardly a person strolled beside this ancient body, or stood
looking out at the broad western sky or at the orange copper radiance
that blazed in one last blast before it paled into night.
Kent leaned against the railing in the center of a great emptiness and
watched as the enlarged globe of the sun fell into the water, and
suddenly night was upon him and he felt a chill and knew autumn by its
presence in the air.
********
Inside the coffee house he sat at a corner table proofing magazine
galleys, but he was interrupted by the presence of a young man who
took the seat across from him.
Don't mean to disturb you, he said, but there's no place else to sit.
It was so.
Kent nodded.
And at the same time, a young man with a cello took a seat on a
slightly raised platform not far from them and began playing Bach's
Third Suite for Unaccompanied Cello. Hearing the rich opening strains,
Kent let out a long breath, looked up from his work, and the young man
across from him smiled.
Rather sheepishly Kent returned the smile.
I'm Zachary, his companion said after a sip of the dark beer he was
drinking, extending his hand.
I'm Kent, Kent said, shaking it.
And then they were silent, as the cellist wove Bach's complex fugues,
ascending and descending, shuttling back and forth, backwards and
forward, through the intricate sound patterns and contrapuntal
harmonies Bach so effortlessly formed and dissolved but which seemed
able to go on infinitely.
The young man had dark, dark hair, long strands of tight curls,
twisted like spirals of vermicelli that reached out from his scalp and
crowned him, falling over his high forehead, but not reaching down to
the perfect arcs of his thick eyebrows or covering his eyes, which
were of an intense blue that was almost violet.
They had a dreamy, unfocused quality to them that made Kent feel quite
light-headed as they settled on him, and he found himself unable to
look away.
But it was not like a staring contest. There was no challenge in them.
Rather there was something like an inquiry.
What? he said, smiling.
What are you doing when you leave here? Zachary answered.
***********
I saw the way that old guy who should know better than to wear a
speedo was looking at you, Terry said, taking hold of Bud's
outstretched cock. I thought he was going to drown himself just so he
could be rescued by you and get some mouth to mouth resuscitation, he
said and kissed Bud on the mouth as if he were biting an apple. Then
he pulled away, leaving the impression of his teeth on Bud's lips.
And you, don't think I didn't catch how you were encouraging him,
leading him on.
I wasn't, Bud said in all innocence.
Are you contradicting me?
Bud was stymied.
A slave does not contradict his master, Terry said, laughing as he
backed his friend into a corner.
No, sir, Bud said, realizing that they had stepped inside their roles.
But you did contradict me. I said I saw you encourage that old man's
interest and you denied it.
Terry was smiling the smile of victory. He had Bud in knots.
Bud stood with his eyes cast down, unable to speak.
It did not matter what the truth was.
[When you write to me, please put the name of the story in the subject
slot. Thanks.]